Monsters, Jokes, Analogies

Main Menu

Whatever A Spider Can 14: Horn Of The Rhino

This series has attempted to tell a full twenty-one minutes of story before, and that episode featured Mysterio, a villain that you can build plots around. That’s not to say that the Rhino is a complete waste, but considering that the narratives on this show are decided when someone writes “Takes city hostage” and “Frames Spider-Man” on two slips of paper and then draws them out of a hat, there’s not much you can do with a guy that has a primary objective of charging into things until he’s forced to pass out. Maybe he’ll hold the entire city for ransom, and until J. Jonah Jameson pays it, he’s going to crash into one building in New York City every hour. Then, he’ll just blame all the ruined buildings on Spider-Man.

On a smaller note, primarily one of victory, with the completion of this episode, I have watched an entire disc’s worth of this show. I started watching it over a year ago, back on March 22nd, 2012. I don’t know what the moral of this victory is, but if the prize is getting sudden headaches and crying way more for no reason, I will take that trophy with honor and dignity.

Spider-Man: “Made it.”

PLOT: The episode begins with Spider-Man just hanging out on a roof in the middle of nowhere, perfectly illustrating the complete lack of urgency that this show has when it comes to any scene that isn’t Spider-Man about to die. Unless Spidey is about to be dismembered or drowned or crushed, he is NYC’s laziest and only crime fighter. You never catch him in a hurry to do anything, and when crime happens, it’s only stopped because he just happened to be in the neighborhood and is the one guy within a five mile radius who can punch through a door.

In this case, Spidey is just waiting to hop onto a train that has a secret weapon part aboard. The train rams directly into an equally ramming Rhino, who says his power aloud, for all the children who saw a large guy in a rhino outfit and wondered when he was going to teleport, and steals the top secret weapon component.

And then, dammit, the army shows up and thinks Spider-Man wrecked the entire train (and when I say wrecked, I mean tore it apart. The train is littered across the newly discovered desert biome of NYC.) I mentioned earlier that there were two parts to Spider-Man episode plot bingo, and against every odd, I can check off one of them.

Aunt May shows up, to help Peter Parker get better when he gets sick from hiding in the hay, Assassin’s Creed-style, while he’s evading the army. Her first appearance isn’t very revealing of her character, as she gets yelled at by Jameson, which also fulfills another two square line on the Spider-Man bingo board: As a character, you are either being yelled at by a furious newspaper editor, or the show is named after you.

The Rhino’s secret hideout is in a cave in the rhino exhibit at the zoo, because of course it is…

…and I can’t believe what I’m seeing. You’re Spider-Man, Spider-Man! Swing on webs! Crawl up walls! Why are you pacing through an I Am Legend-esque empty NYC with a flashlight, where all the streets have apparently been transformed into Trader Joe’s parking lots?

WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW?

The next Rhino heist is at the airport, where both Spidey and Rhino pick spots to hide (behind a completely revealing metal tower and some barrels, respectively) as they wait for the right time to strike. They have their showdown in the baggage claim where Rhino wins by pressing the “On” switch to a ceiling fan that Spidey was sitting on at the time. It reminds me of the time that Magneto beat Professor X when he used his powers to recline Xavier’s chair too much, making it impossible for Professor X to climb out of. Also, that never happened. And I hate this.

J. Jonah Jameson puts on a fake beard to sneak a quick peak at the last component of that secret military weapon, which is arriving on a submarine. I wish this show was about him. I know that he wouldn’t get much webbing or punching done, but at least it would make things interesting.

I don’t know why he even does this. He’s pretending to be a member of “the press” but considering that he runs the only newspaper company in the Spider-Man world, shouldn’t that mean that he is the press? He doesn’t need to dress up for it. Also, since he’s the only member of his two-man editorial staff that comes into work, technically, he is the only press. Ever.

The army kidnaps Jameson, while the Rhino swims toward the submarine fast enough to sink it. Rhino isn’t able to get away before Spider-Man lassos him underwater, the second time Spidey has used a web lasso in this episode, but Rhino is able to escape. Man, this secret weapon better end up being a giant Rhino robot that Rhino climbs into. That’s the only way it will be worth it.

Turns out that the weapon is just a cylinder that’s pressed into a yellow cube, and Spidey stops Rhino by webbing some pepper into his face, which causes him to sneeze so hard that his whole cave layer collapses on him. Don’t ever envy me.

Animation Woe: I always thought that the Rhino was created when scientists gave a mediocre criminal a suit that they presumably made for him. I might be wrong though, considering all the wrinkles on this Rhino’s face. It looks like a bunch of mad inventors had a spare rhino costume lying around, so they just shoved the first fat, unwilling man that they could find into it.

2 responses to “Whatever A Spider Can 14: Horn Of The Rhino”

I know I’ve mentioned before that I grew up watching this show but being what they referred to at the time as a “hefty” child, the Rhino was one of my favorite Spider-man villains.
Thanks fer highlighting this groundbreaking animated children’s television series. which more than Sesame Street or Mr. Rodgers was the foundation of my childhood.